EARLY STAGES
Stars of dish on first theater exeriences
MICHAEL URIE directed shows and designed posters in middle school. Patti LuPone performed Broadway musicals on a friend’s patio in junior high. And they’ve never forgotten these game-changing adolescent glory days.
That’s what Douglas Carter Beane’s play “Shows for Days” — now in previews, and opening Monday at the Mitzi E. Newhouse at Lincoln Center — is all about.
The action unfolds at a scrappy community theater in Reading, Pa., modeled after the one where a teen Beane discovered the wonders and wackiness of stage life decades before his Broadway successes (“The Little Dog Laughed”).
With their fellow castmates, Urie and LuPone recall indelible and invaluable early theater experiences.
PATIO SHOWCASE
“I knew what I was going to do very early on and was supported by the school system,” says LuPone (“Evita,” “Gypsy”), 66, who grew up in Northport, Long Island, and plays Irene, artistic director and leading player. “When I was in junior high, I became a member of the Patio Players. It was three of my classmates, who were all above me in high school. We performed musicals on Cathy Sheldon’s patio. We’d do that in the summertime. The orchestrations were good.”
MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION
“I was a shy kid,” says Urie (“Ugly Betty,” “Buyer & Cellar”), 34, who plays Beane’s alter-ego Car. In middle school in Plano, Texas, a teacher took him under her wing and put him in an advanced-theater class. “I did everything. I built flats. I directed shows. I assistant-directed shows. I designed posters. I became obsessed,” he says. “At that point, I thought ‘I’m going to be a theater teacher.’ Eventually I changed my mind.”
GREAT EQUALIZER
“I grew up in a house that didn’t have running water,” says Dale Soules (“Hair,” “Orange Is the New Black”), 68, who plays Sid, the stage manager. “Viewed from the outside, I was too different.” Then her middle-school English teacher in West Milford, Conn., helped her land the role of Aunt Eller in “Oklahoma!” “Meanspirited, prejudicial and petty people turned into cooperative human beings. That was the hook for me.”
THE REAL THING
“I grew up in Santa Cruz, Calif. During summers I would do community theater,” says Zoe Winters (“An Octoroon”), 30, who portrays Maria, an actress. As a kid she played Rizzo in “Grease.” “I was completely in love with the boy playing Kenickie. We were in performances and we were doing a stage kiss. One person puts their thumb over the other person’s mouth, so you’re just essentially kissing your own thumb. He said, ‘What do you think about just really kissing?’ I said ‘Absolutely! I think it will help the show.’”
FAMILY AFFAIR
“I have a sister, Sabrina, who’s five years older than me. She was in all the plays in high school and I caught the acting bug through her,” says Jordan Dean (“Mamma Mia!”), 29, who plays Damien, an actor. “There was a production of ‘Cabaret’ when I was in middle school” in Westfield, N.J. “I was in the children’s ensemble. It was the coolest thing to see how high school kids rehearsed and hung out. There was something exciting, raw and rich that I hadn’t really experienced before. I knew I wanted to have that the rest of my life.
ROAR OF THE CROWD
“I got into theater at the Baltimore School of the Arts,” says Lance Coadie Williams, 36, who plays Clive, an actor. “My family’s always supported me.” Like when he had the lead role in “Macbeth,” which included a sexy scene with Lady Macbeth. “We were intertwined on the bed,” he says. “And I could hear my grandmother say ‘I think I may get some grandbabies after all.”